Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
“AT any moment, this music will raise numerous questions. Is it Vietnamese? Or jazz? Or traditional music, blues, African, Indian … is it written — or is it improvised?”
These questions are asked by the guitarist Nguyen Le within the sleeve notes of his extraordinary album with the “traditional” musician also from Vietnam, Ngo Hong Quang.
Le was born in Paris in 1959 of Vietnamese parents and has spent a jazz life within two often powerfully contesting traditions.
New releases by Porridge Radio, The Cribs, and Bjorn Meyer
WILL STONE witnesses an experimental piano concerto inspired by the work of a young Jewish victim of the Nazis
As part of the 2025 London Jazz Festival Rich Mix offered intriguing sessions titled 'Persian Jazz,' CHRIS SEARLE was there
KEVAN NELSON reports back from a delegation to the epic celebrations for the anniversary of Vietnam’s 1945 revolution, where British communists found a thriving, prosperous socialist country, brimming with ambition and well-earned national pride


